A Trip to the Beach
by padfoot's prose
Summary: Oh, hi James. Why don't you come with me for a midnight stroll on the beach? And, by the way, I mean the snow-covered beach at the edge of the ice-covered Lake during the worst fog of the year.


**A/N: For Ralinde's OTP Competition and TheNextFolchart's Midnight Challenge, both on HPFC. I was looking for some late-night inspiration, and as always HPFC delivered!**

**The prompts for this were: 1. My OTP (Lily/James, in case that wasn't obvious) and 2. Going to the beach at midnight.**

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><p><span><em><strong>A Trip to the Beach<strong>_

_by padfoot_

By all accounts, James Potter has no good reason to be awake at such an ungodly hour. The fire in the Common Room is burning low, barely a pile of glowing red ash that casts a dull, hot light on the hearth.

James is sitting on the floor, having migrated there at around midnight. He had heard the great clock tolling, bringing in the dawn of a new day, and had wondered to himself how long dawn would hold off for. He didn't want to face tomorrow just yet. Somewhere, deep down – somewhere moronically stupid – he felt as if, as long as he didn't fall asleep, he could somehow manage to hold off the weekend.

It was an odd thing to be trying to do. For all that James knew – all the spells he'd been taught, all the forbidden facts he had dug up beneath the cover of his invisibility cloak – there was nothing he had ever come across in the magical or Muggle world that could stop time. Yet, here he was. Never one to give up trying.

The glowing dregs of the fire cracked as a burnt chunk of wood cracked and collapsed into the pit. A small cloud of white ashes were thrown into the air above it, staining the darkened bricks a chalky white. James resisted the foolish, bleary urge to reach out and grab at those falling ashes, to somehow try and save them from their inevitable extinguishment.

It would be pointless.

He started at the sound of a footstep, jerking his head around to glimpse a foot stepping onto the carpet at the bottom of the stairs to the girl's dormitories. Craning his neck to see the foot's owner, James was surprised to see a familiar wave of red hair, pulled into a messy ponytail, and tired green eyes.

Lily stopped when she noticed James' staring. Her whole body rocked with the momentum, as if she was only awake enough to make herself move, but not enough to mess with her motion. She blinked slowly, her fprehead furrowing.

"Potter?"

James pushed himself up to stand properly in front of the fire. Without the armchairs blocking his view, he could see Lily properly now – clad in a nightgown, her arms were down by her sides, hands fiddling with the belt of the gown.

"Hey, Evans," James replied, his voice catching from disuse and exhaustion. "What brings you here?"

Lily's frowned deepened, her fingers twisting tighter into the knot of the nightgown's fuzzy white rope.

"I don't know," she murmured, "I just. Needed to be somewhere else."

"Too much snoring in the girls' dorms?"

"No," Lily said quickly. Her gaze left James', her eyes travelling across the floor, fixing on the dying fire. "The opposite actually. Too much silence."

James followed her gaze, watching the dull, desperate glow of the fire's ashes.

"I know the feeling."

They paused for a long moment, separated by a great stretch of empty, dark Common Room and a huge wedge of tired, searching silence.

"Do you want to come somewhere with me?" Lily suddenly asked.

James look back to her, startled by the question.

"It's almost three in the morning."

Lily's frown hadn't gone, but her eyes were brighter now, more awake and alert.

"So," she said, "do you want to come?"

Perplexed but curious, James followed Lily to the Portrait hole. She pushed it open, careful not to wake the quietly snoring Fat Lady as she closed it once James was outside as well.

"We won't be able to get back in until she wakes up," James whispered.

Lily shrugged in reply and headed down the nearest staircase. Unsure whether to curse or grin, James quickly caught up.

Together they silently descended through the hallways of the castle. James followed the swish of Lily's nightgown, holding back his sounds of surprise as she ducked into hidden corridors and skipped over trick stairs. Her footsteps were almost silent on the castle's stone floors, and she moved lithely and fast, clearly fixed on reaching her destination. James was startled when their path took them to the Entrance Hall then to the great wooden doors.

With a quick glance at James, Lily opened the doors and slipped outside into the night. James followed.

The cold night air hit James like a truck, and he gasped out a strangled complaint.

Lily merely glanced over at him, her lips tipping up into the hint of a smile.

"Can't stand a little cold, Potter?" she asked.

"A little cold?!" Lily shushed James with an indignant look, so her hurried closer to her and said, "Evans, it's bloody freezing out here! You'll get us both killed."

"You don't have to come with me," Lily pointed out, beginning to stride away across the ground.

James watched her hurrying away, noticing for the first time the thick fog that eneveloped the grounds. Combined with the fact it was arse-o'clock in the morning, he'd lose asight of her any moment if he didn't make up his mind now.

He mouthed wordless objections, culminating in a grumbled, "Don't need to- for Merlin's sake!" and then jogged out after Lily, guided only by the shimmer of starlight off her ponytail.

"Evans!" he called, "Wait up, I'm coming!"

Lily glanced back at James, smiling properly now, and only gave him a second to catch up before pushing on. The snow was ankle deep and powder-new, soft and oh-so-cold where it leaked straight through James' socks. He could feel his feet going numb, which was a whole new unpleasant experience.

"Where are we even going?" he asked, close enough now for Lily not to ignore him.

She was showing no sign of being cold, despite being clad in – James could only assume – nothing much more than nightgown and pyjamas.

"That's a stupid question," she said dismissively. "Try again."

James groaned, wondering how it was possible for Evans to frustrate him even in these ridiculous circumstances.

"Okay, _why_ are we going wherever we're going?"

"That's a much better question," Lily replied, turning to James with a grin. "Why were you still in the Common Room?"

"That's not an answer."

"Are you just going to spend this whole conversation alternating between saying stupid and intelligent things, Potter? Or could we try to stay high-brow for more than one sentence?"

If he weren't so uncomprehendingly cold, James might have laughed. Lily might as well have been talking to him in the Great Hall at dinner for all the effort she was making. Clearly the fact that James had followed her out into the freezing night and very likely his untimely death meant nothing at all to Lily Evans. It figured, really.

"I was trying to stop tomorrow coming."

Lily's expression turned quizzical, "What's so bad about Sunday?"

"No, Saturday. I was trying to stop _today_ from coming, I guess. If you want to get technical."

"Why?"

"Because it's a Hogsmede weekend."

"And your parents haven't paid you your allowance yet?"

There was definitely a hint of mocking in Lily's tone, but James took the high road and ignored. Also his teeth were beginning to chatter, and he wanted to do his best to minimise his use of words, lest Lily notice and mocking him more. She seemed to have a habit of mocking him.

"_No_. I didn't want the Hogsmede day to arrive because I have no one go with-"

"What are all your other lackey's in detention, or-"

"-and because _you_ are going with Lawrence Crane."

James spat out the boy's name between gritted teeth, not entirely because of the cold, and Lily fell silent.

She looked away from James, back into the thick fog that surrounded them.

"Oh," she said.

James rolled his eyes, feeling distinctly put off and cold and like this whole misadventure was a stupid idea.

"Oh," he agreed.

Beside him, Lily bit her lip, shooting him a nervous glance.

"I came out here because I didn't like how quiet it was in my dormitory," she said, as if it was a confession.

For his part, James felt as if his answer to her question was somewhat more significant. He felt like, if this was the best Lily could do, he had definitely been duped.

"I'd been lying awake all night," Lily continued, "and suddenly it was just too much. Suddenly I realised that I had slept in that room every night of my life for the majority of my year every year since I was eleven. I've never snuck out at night, you know?"

"Not until now?"

Lily nodded, and for the first time James saw anxiety in her eyes, a pinch of nervousness in her forehead. The signs were so subtle that it would have been easy to miss them. But Lily's tone turned beseeching, betraying the feelings her body hid so devastatingly well as she went on.

"And I realised that I might never do anything daring in my life. I might never feel my heart beat fast with adrenalin, I might never be surprised, I might never be scared. I might never feel properly cold or properly hot. Properly safe or properly in danger. I might never know what it is to _feel_ things really, deeply, passionately, because I've just never-"

Lily was working herself up into a knot, her hands on the cord of her nightgown again, her face scrunched up and eyes wild. Without meaning to, James reached out for her hand, her fingers ice cold against his.

"Hey," he said, tone soothing and worried, "Shh, calm down. It's okay, Evans." Her tight, balled up hand relaxed in his, and James carefully unravelled the cord from around her fingers. "You're okay," he murmured, squeezing her hand, hoping to make her feel something other than the cold, the panic, the desolate, bare fear in her eyes.

She blinked, keeping her eyes shut for a few seconds too long. James watched her closely, held her hand tight. His stomach was churning with the silly, unfounded worry that if he let her go, Lily might run. That she might throw herself into the Lake or go sprinting into the Forest, all for a foolish mission to _feel._

_Merlin_, James wanted to tell Lily, _what a stupid thing it is to want to feel_. What a stupid thing, when you could be like her: smart and beautiful and likeable and so far above it all, above the drama, the gossip, the opinions of others. What a stupid, stupid thing to want to be petty and sensitive. To be stung every time someone you liked so much as sneered, stung so much that you tried hard, every day, to be liked. To be admired. To be someone like James Potter.

How stupid that someone like Lily could ever want to be someone like him.

"I just want to feel _something_," Lily whispered, her voice so quite that it could have been lost in the fog. Only James were holding her close now, closer than he'd realised, her face by his shoulder and her whispered words warm against his cold, cold neck.

"Where are we going?" James asked again, his words slow and deliberate.

Lily looked up at him.

"To the Lake," she said. James looked away, opening his mouth to object, to begin to tell her the million obvious reasons why going to the Black Lake in the middle of night in the freezing cold was a bad idea. "I just want to put my toes in!" Lily quickly continued, before James could begin his lecture on sensible behaviour (and oh yes, he did sense the irony in all of this with a bitter taste on his tongue). "I just want to feel how cold it is, that's all. Just to say that I've done it."

"You're insane, Lily Evans," James told her.

She smiled a little, the panic in her eyes finally dying down, "But you'll still come with me, right?"

James sighed, loosening his grip on Lily's hand a little, but not letting her go.

"Lead the way."

As they battled their way through the fog, setting a course roughly in the direction of the Lake, James wondered exactly why he was going along with this stupid quest. He then wondered if there was a non-romantic way to say, "I'd follow you off the end of the earth", and decided, "Lead the way" might be it.

"We're here."

James almost crashed into to Lily's back, staggering to a halt just before they collided. Before them, the fog was a thick as ever, but a few inches in front of Lily's feet the white snow gave way to a greyish slush – the edge of the Lake.

For a moment, James' mind flashed to a scene in a time gone by, watching Lily and Alice dangle their toes in the Lake on a warm summer day. Nothing could better summarise how changed they both were since back then.

"So what now?"

"Don't let me fall in."

There was a smile in Lily's tone, but nonetheless it was out of necessity rather than desire (well, mostly necessity) that James reached out to hold Lily's side, pulling her back a bit from the slippery ice at the Lake's edge as she bent to pull off her shoes.

She gasped a little when her first bare foot touched to snow, her hand shooting out almost involuntarily to grasp James' arm where it tightened on her waist.

"Cold?" James asked.

"Yeah," Lily breathed, and he could tell she was definitely smiling now.

She was slower and more careful as she took off her second shoe, laying them both well back in a little pit in the snow. Then she lowered herself to the ground, James moving with her, always staying back, staying somewhere solid and safe, his hand moving to grab her elbow so he could pull her back if he needed.

"I'm just going to, you know, shuffle closer, I think," Lily said.

"Okay," James nodded, "But please don't fall in."

She turned around to shoot him a grin, and then started pushing herself forward.

Lily's progress was slow, and James could feel when her arm starting shaking. It was probably somewhere because of the cold, but James could sense she was nervous again, or perhaps more like excited. He worried, a little, that this crazy girl of his was getting excited by such an insane event.

_Oh, hi James, I see you're awake late at night. Why don't you come with me for a midnight stroll on the beach? And, by the way, I mean the snow-covered beach at the edge of the ice-covered Lake during the worst fog of the year. Sound good?_

And yet, James thought, he was the idiot who'd agreed.

He jumped when Lily let out a sudden scream, the sound shocking and loud in the thick, pressing fog. On instinct, James pulled hard at her arm, and Lily's scream cut off and he wrenched her back up the bank, both of them falling back onto the snow.

James could feel the cold trickle of snow behind the collar of his jumper. He wriggled out from where he'd pulled Lily virtually on top of him, shaking like a dog as he tried to dislodge the snow from his clothes.

"Merlin, James! What was that for?!" Lily sounded mad, and it was only once James had finished dislodging snow from all the cavaties of his body that it had soaked into that he fixed her with an indignant look.

"You screamed," he told her, somewhat accusingly, "What was I meant to do? Leave you to get frostbite in your toes? This was your stupid idea, Evans! And yeah, I went along with it, but I was not about to sit around and watch you lose limbs for the sake of bloody 'feeling something'!"

Lily looked shocked at James' outburst, and she took a moment to wipe a lump of wet snow from where it had splattered onto her face in all of James' dislodging.

"Sorry," she eventually said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Then maybe don't scream like that! Merlin, Lily. I thought you were about to die."

"I'm sorry," she said again, but with a small smile now.

James noticed the smile and stared at it with suspicion. Lily never smiled around him, as a rule. Not ever since he'd told her that her smile was like a sunrise over a freshly mown lawn, the first golden light kissing the ground with their warm, golden lips. Only tonight, he'd gotten a series of smiles, and this one was almost genuine.

"What?" he asked, distrusting her expression.

Lily's smile grew wider.

"You were scared of me dying."

"Of course I was scared of you dying! Has it not dawned on you yet that I care about you, Lily?"

Her smile grew wider. Bolder.

James grew even more uncomfortable.

"But that's just it. You didn't not want me to die because it 'would be a waste of such goddess-like beauty'. It wasn't because you'd 'never get to kiss my perfect lips', or 'feel my nimble, fingers on your body'."

James could feel himself going red now, the cold of the night suddenly nothing against the heat creeping up from his neck. He recognised those phrases, recognised having his own words repeated back to him. Merlin, he was a prat sometimes.

Lily was grinning properly now, and all James could indolently think was, well, _yes_, her smile was like a sunrise over freshly mown lawn, the first golden light kissing the ground with their warm, golden lips. Big whoop.

Lily crept closer to James, sliding across the snow. Her feet were still bare and she must have been freezing, but from her expression no one could have guessed it.

"To be fair," James said, when Lily was getting a little bit too close for comfort, "Those reasons did definitely contribute to me saving your life. Like, they weren't at the front of my mind right then, but now that you remind me…"

He trailed off, eyes fixed on Lily's, which were sparkling with bemusement.

"You are very good," Lily said, "At pretending to be a prat."

"Thank you," James replied. "You are very good at pretending to be sane." He nodded towards the Lake, a silent presence beside them throughout this exchange.

Lily laughed, and suddenly the tension between them was broken.

Glad to be free from the frankly terrifying pull of Lily's eyes, James hauled himself to his feet. He spend some time dusting himself off, glancing to see that Lily was putting her shoes back on, thankfully doing the sane thing for one time tonight. When she was done, James offered her his hand, and she let him pull her up as well.

They stayed where they were for a second too long, hands clasped and bodies too close. Then James stepped back.

"So," he said, his tone aiming for casual, "Have we done enough insane feeling for tonight, or do you want to jump off a Quidditch hoop and fall onto the ground to really get that full experience of pain that is clearly holding you back?"

"There's no need to tease, Potter," Lily said. "We're all done for tonight."

"Well that's a relief. Can we go back to castle now? My feet are freezing!"

Lily gave James a hard, deadpan look.

"Maybe not as freezing as yours," he conceded. "But a close second!"

Lily laughed, and then, quite unexpectedly, grabbed James' hand.

"Back to the castle then," she said, "Come on, you prat."

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><p><strong>In case anyone is wondering, they were caught by McGonagall outside the Fat Lady's portrait - the Fat Lady was still asleep, and Lily yelled a bit too loud in an attempt to wake her up. Both James and Lily were given a detention, and forbidden from going on the Hogsmede trip. Their detention was to polish the trophies in the trophy room. They ended up having a soap suds fight, and totally not making out.<strong>


End file.
